Jacob Have I Loved Read Online Free Page B

hadn’t even tried to explain what I meant to the others. It was only when I came to the end of the path and sat down upon a giant stump of driftwood and stared at the sickly winter moon waveringly reflected on the black water that I realized how cold I was and began to cry.
    I should not forget that it was Caroline who came and found me there. Sitting on the stump, my back to the swamp and the village, I was crying aloud, so that I did not even hear the crunch of her galoshes.
    â€œWheeze.”
    I jerked around, angry to be found out.
    â€œIt’s past time for your supper,” she said.
    â€œI’m not hungry.”
    â€œOh, Wheeze,” she said. “It’s too cold to stay out here.”
    â€œI’m not coming back. I’m running away.”
    â€œWell, you can’t run away tonight,” she said. “There’s no ferry until tomorrow morning. You might as well come in and have supper and get warm.”
    That was Caroline. I would hope for tears andpleadings. She offered facts. But they were facts I couldn’t argue with. It would be next to impossible to run away in a skiff at any time of year. I sighed, wiped my face on the back of my hand, and rose to follow her. Even though I could have walked the path blindfolded, I felt foolishly grateful for the homely bobbing comfort of her flashlight.
    The watermen of Rass had their own time system. Four-thirty was suppertime winter and summer. So when Caroline and I walked in, our parents and grandmother were already eating. I expected a reprimand from my father or a tongue-lashing from my grandmother, but to my relief they simply nodded as we came in. Mother got up to bring us some hot food from the stove, which she put before us when we had washed and sat down. Caroline must have told them what had happened at school. I was torn between gratitude that they should sympathize and anger that they should know.
    The school concert was Saturday night. Sunday was the only day the men did not get up before dawn, and therefore Saturday night was the only night anyone of the island would consider spending in a frivolous manner. I didn’t want to go, but it would have been harder to stay away and imaginewhat people were saying about me than to go and face them.
    The boys had helped Mr. Rice rig up footlights, really a row of naked bulbs behind reflectors cut from tin cans, but they gave the tiny stage at the end of the gymnasium a magical distance from the audience. As I stood there on the stage floor in front of the risers, I could barely make out the familiar features of my parents in the center of the second row of chairs. I felt as if those of us on the stage were floating in another layer of the world, removed from those below. When I squinted my eyes, the people all blurred like a film that has jumped the sprockets and is racing untended through the machine. I think I sang most of the program with my eyes squinted. It was a very comforting feeling thus to remove myself from the world I imagined was laughing at me.
    Betty Jean Boyd sang the solo for “O Holy Night,” and I hardly flinched when she went flat on the first “shining.” Betty Jean was considered to have a lovely voice. In any other generation on Rass she would have been worshiped for it, flat as it was, but in my day on Rass, everyone had heard Caroline sing. No one should have had to bear that comparison. PoorBetty Jean. I was puzzled that Mr. Rice should give her this solo. Caroline had sung it last year. Everyone would remember. But this year Mr. Rice had chosen a different solo for Caroline, a very simple one. I had been angry the first time he had sung it over for us. Caroline’s voice, after all, was our school treasure. Why had he given the showy song to Betty Jean and a strange thin melody to Caroline?
    Now Mr. Rice left the piano and stood before us, his arms tense, his long fingers slightly curved. His dark eyes traveled back and forth,